The Boy Who Lived: To Speak to Snakes
by sarsperilla
Summary: Harry has earned a reputation as a hero, and was rightly sorted into Gryfendor. But what if, when the hat thought he was best for Slytherinn, Harry had agreed? A ficcy about this alternitive Harry, and the story of a very different Draco.
1. Welcome to My World, Harry

Disclaimer:I do not own any of J.K's charactors, sadly, or hogwarts. Not evan my own magic wand. I do, however, own the plot, and possibly my shoes. For those of you who don't know, this is a fic about if Harry had chosen to be in Slytherinn instead of Gryfendor.  
Welcome To My World Part 1 Draco Malfoy stared with diseit at the Boy who Lived. The boy who lived to haunt him. The boy who lived to make him suffer. He was at the other end of the table.  
The other end of the table started where Draco ended.  
How had he come to be such a cast-off? How was that he clung to the edge of the table for dear life while Harry tried to fight off hoards of admirers?? So what if he had bloody survived the wrath of voldemort! He was famous just for existing. It didn't seam fair. He'd done nothing. Not like he'd haulted the Dark lords progress. If he had, perhaps they would be allowed to visit hogsmeade without Dumbledore herding them like sheep!  
But Harry had done nothing but gloat in his glorious birthright.  
He'd used some of his earnings to by himself a custome robe, to set himself apart. All his school robes were emrald green and cast with an illusion to look like a multitude of wreathing snakes. They brought out the green in Harry's eyes, made him look almost handsome. Draco leered. On the plus side, Harry's hair could never be tamed. Not like Draco's, which hung undecided between gold and silver, the exact shade of pyrite, of fools gold. And his eyes were like aqua marine-glittering, endless,and seering. Draco's features were strong and attractive. He was tall, but just tall enough.  
He should have been the king of Slytherinn, the cool, hard power behind the snake. The rising wave of power and energy, foaming with anger for those who defied him.  
What was Harry doing being King of Slytherinn, the house of the dark lord? It made no sense. It never had.  
Harry looked in Draco's direction. Draco gave him a cool smile. He may have been an outcast, but he wasn't looked down u pon. He was solitary,avoided. But everyone knew without speaking, felt without realizeing, that there was something about Draco. He was quiet, cool and illusive as freazing water from a ground spring. He was different from them. There should have been a fifth house, the house of the dragon, the house were Draco and his kind belonged.  
Except there were no others like like him.  
"Could you pass the bread?" Harry asked, all mock politeness and arragant toss of his head.  
Draco cocked a brow but didn't speak. He fingured his wand under the table and whispered the word:"locomonortheteast".  
The bread flew from the baskete, whisked over astonished heads and noses, and promptly whacked Harry in the head. Disgruntled and seething, Harry plucked the bread from the air. Draco's smile was cold and testing. And guenuine.  
"and the butter." Harry's voice quavered with indignation.  
"I don't think you really want to do that."Draco said with a yawn.  
"Really?"Harry's gaze was challenging.  
"Really." Harry sighed. "It's not that hard. just lift your hand and wrap your fingures around the edge of the butter tray. Then lift your arm and move it in my derection." The butter splatted against Harrys face.  
Harry clucked his tung.  
Draco leaned back in satisfaction.  
Then he lifted his own hunk of fluffy white french bougette, smeared with just enough white butter. He closed his eyes and took a huge mouthfull, savoring the delicoussomething that only Hogwarts food could ever have. 


	2. Other Cases of Misplacement

Other Cases of Misplacement:Part Two.  
From where Draco sat, he had a clear veiw of the only window in the dungeon-like potions room, only partially obscurred by the sillhouette of Hermione Granger's head. If her hair had lain flat and orderly, it would not have been such an obsticle to daydreams of the world outside the castle, but, as it were, Hermione's notiously bushy hair magnified the her head the same way long fur distorts the assumed weight of a persian cat. Draco mumbled his frustration. The forbidden forest loomed-dark,forebodeing, and as green as jade. It's endless depths, it's layers of prickly twigs, it's gloomy allure, was like a call insistant in the blonde slytherinns head. He could probably leave. Snape wouldn't stop him, and no one else would, either. Harry might hassle him, but in the end, that would just be a source of annoyance, and evan a little amusement to Draco. Potions was the only class in which he was not singled out as either entertainment or a conveinent scapegoat. Actually, Draco disliked the crude, arragant teacher, Snape as much as anyone. He reminded him of Hary. In love with his own power, and a bully. Not that Draco was a sweet little fuzzy kitten.  
No, Draco was a ravenous little fuzzy kitten with claws. But he didn't strike the shadows, didn't claw the stragglers, didn't tear the undeserving to shreds. He was just very talented at exacting his own revenge. Talented enough that no one but the teachers, and, to Draco's grudged admittence, Harry, normally left him alone. So why didn't Snape return Draco's loathing? It wasn't that hard to tell. Snape was an ex-slytherinn, a slytherinn that oviously hadn't been put in the house of power, the house of cunning, the house of the snake because he planned on using his deap reserves of magic to save the world from the rising unnamed one. He hated to see his house in the hands of the Dark Lords deapest irritation. And he knew as well as anyone that, had things been different, Draco would be the face that came to mind when student's muttered Ôslytherinn'.  
Besides, Draco's potion was finished. It was gurgling like a babbling brook and the murky color of algi, but then, so was the Potion Master's example.  
That settled it then.  
Draco pushed away from his desk, stood up promptly, and left.  
After he'd take about two steps into the hall, a voice interupted him. He readied himself for a coy retort, only to realize that the voice was not that of Harry, or, in fact, of any other slytherinn.  
"Just where do you think you're going?"Hermione granger asked, hands on her hips.  
"Won't someone notice your gone?" Draco inquired wearily, turning with as languidly as possible. "No. I told Snape we were out of mugroot, and I'd gone to fetch some more".  
"He let you do that?"Draco scoffed disbelievingly."YOU? Just let you walk out of the classroom like that?"he awaited her reply.  
"No. I didn't wait for him to tell me not to."Hermione gave a proud, defliant flick of her head, sending her ginger hair into a cascadeing tumult.  
"my kind of girl."Draco murmured, but not so she could hear him.  
"excuse me?"Hermione threw an axious glance over her shoulder, not as sure of herself as she'd preteneded.  
"It's nothing."Draco said a little too quickly.  
"It is." "It's not, and you still have to tell me why you came after me." For a moment, the two stared at eachother with unspoken challenge.  
"allright."Hermione relented at last."You first." Draco sighed and rolled his eyes.  
"I'm going to forbidden forest."he said, figureing that the truth was the best answer, as fact being stranger than fiction, particurally in the wizarding world, normally caught people off gard.  
"why-"Hermione caught herself as Draco cocked an irritated eyebrow. "I really just wanted to know what you were doing."She confessed.  
"That's all you want?" Draco's voice was doubting.  
"I want a lot of things. Decent hair, for starters. And possibly an owl. And just a fifth of the fortune Harry has." Her voice had a strange tone to it as she spoke.  
Draco picked up on the almost invisible undertone to her words. "Is that what this is about? HARRY?" He was amazed at how hurt it made him feal. He worked to keep his aquamarine eyes perfectly cold and level, like solidly frozen ice, instead of like the shaky,shifting waves he felt like he was drowning in.  
"Just a little."Hermione admitted.  
"he---you're...the only one...at least in Slytherinn....who doesn't spend all day goggling at him."she quickly stammered before she lost the nerve.  
"are you implying that the entire male population of slytherinn, save myself, is gay?"Draco scrutinized hermione, his head cocked at angle that was almost painfull.  
"That's not what I meant, and you know it! And don't be such a biggot!" Hermione spat, annoyed.  
Draco sighed."I wasn't being serious! And I didn't say there was anything WRONG with it! I just...wanted to know if that's what you meant!"regaining his poise, Draco smiled smugly.  
"Aren't you going to send me back to class?"Hermione asked doubtfully, fealing her cheeks tint themselves with the natural rosyness of embaresmeant.  
"Aren't you going to tell me not to leave?" 


	3. Worse Hair Still For Hermione Granger

Worse Hair Yet for Hermione Granger:Part Three.  
"Not if you don't try to send me back."Hermione replied instantly.  
Draco reguarded Hermione, trying to decide if she was serious. But he quickly made up his mind. "Allright."he said,"Let's get going."  
It wasn't difficult for them to leave Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. If anyone had seen them, they would have fond more oddity in the unusual pairing of the acedemic gryfendor and the icy slytherinn than in the fact that they were skipping class. They said less then two words the whole way to the doors. They grunted as they pushed them open, and trotted down the stairs,matching eachothers strides perfectly.  
A chill wind beat against their robes, and whipped Hermione's hair about her face. Shivering, she hugged her arms to her chest.  
Draco waited wordlessly, and they continued on their way.  
They quickly ate up the distance to the forest. They paused at the outskirts, and both threw a longing glance at the saftey that was Hogwarts.  
"this is it."Draco said. "last chance to go back to those notes you excell at." He gave Hermione a questioning glance.  
Hermione shook her head with an air of finallity. "I'm coming."  
"what if I drag you into something you'll regret?"  
Hermione laughed.  
"Then I'll turn you into a toad."  
Draco smiled a wry smile, and the two of them stepped across the threshold, into the forest. They walked a ways in silence, too obsorbed in the tedious task of snapping twigs and stomping foilage, of forgeing a path into the forbidden, to spare a thought for the other. Soon, however, much sooner then either had expected, they reached a clearing. Draco whiped the persperation from his pale brow as her Hermione bent to streighten her robes,then straightened to pull a burr or three from her hair. Exhaling, Draco said:"So."the single word hung like a question in the air between them:what now? Hermione opened her mouth as if to answer, but at that moment, something happened that scattered all linear thoughts from Hermione's frizzy head and Draco's pretty one. "Why are you making that noise?"Draco asked, panicked. He knew evan as he said it that howling, mournfull wail like a gian'ts infant bawling was not issueing from Hermione's bearly parted lips.  
"I'm not!!!!" she exclaimed, thinking of something to say at last. They both stood silent for a moment and listened.  
"Sounds like someone opened a howler."Draco said, uneasy and not able to fully mask it.  
"Not an english howler!!!" Hermione was right. The wordless moan was inhuman and reached octives that human or howler alike could never hope to hit.  
"I think we should go back!" Hermione sounded frantic.  
"Be my guest. I'm staying.".;  
"Draco...."Hermione trailed off helplessly.  
"you can tell me not to leave now, belatedly. Because i'm telling you to go back to class!"Draco snapped irritably, forgeing on.  
Hermione caught his sleave."DRACO!"  
Now Draco caught what he'd missed before:the quavering urgency that was more than fear of loud noises. He piveted on one foot.  
For a moment all he could see was the freightened glint in Hermione's liquid brown eyes. Then he screamed.  
He was stareing into the goulish, leering eyes as red as rubys, as large and almound shaped as footballs. A jagged jaw opened. Huge, craterous nostrils flared. A row of parchment yellow teeth glinted in the dark. A forked, serpentine tung slithered across scaled lips.  
"Dispersetate!"Hermione yelled, and a blinding flash of white light shot from the tip of her readied wand.  
Draco collapsed against her, cluching her sleave as she held his. His face flooded with relief.  
Hermione studied him, his head against her shoulder, his pale gold hair looking paler and golder then ever against her robe that was black as a void. "Relax." she said gently. "It was only an illusion.  
Draco quickly recovered his composer, springing away from Hermione and double-tasking as he flicked her hand from his wrist and whiped a residual magical dust from his robes in one fluid movement.  
"Right. I know that. It just startled me."  
Hermione smiled sadly and shook her head.  
She didn't bother to argue. Instead, she just said:"I'm going back."she looked contempluative."probably to a rageing hellfire. Which I'll hopefully know a spell to disipitate. If that...thing...really didn't bother you, and if you are incredibly stupid, you can stay and let the forest swallow you. If not..."she left the sentance hang in the air. Draco glared. But his blue eyes were tinted with fear as he stumbled after her.  
The howl rose to a defeaning creshendo. 


	4. How To Lift A Kitten By the Scruff of Hi

How to Lift a Kitten By the Scruff of His Neck:Part Four.  
The howling haulted abruptly when Draco and Hermione reached the bottom of the stairs. Draco growled his frustration. "It's allright."Hermione said a little too quickly, trying to console him. "At least we missed potions class!"she added hurridly.  
"Are you quite sure?"Draco seamed reluctant to re-enter Hogwarts so soon.  
Hermione winced. "almost completely. But we can daudle, if you like. As I'm not so sure that Snape is going to be so happy to see either of us".  
Draco looked around as though he was afraid someone would see them together. Hermione rolled her eyes. "It's fine. Honestly, haven't you ever skipped class before???"She stared him down, as though utterly repulsed and repelled by the idea.  
"WHAT?"Draco was outraged. His blue eyes sparked like fire;like blue fire;like the hottest, most angrey fire of all. "Of COURSE I have!" "Good." Draco made a strange, throaty noise halfway between a sigh and a growl. Like an agrivated feline. "Easy for you to say. You aren't in the same house as the boy-who-lived-to-speak-to-snakes!" Hermione jutted her jaw in a firm, angrey line. "Well, if I was, I'm sure I could handle it. handle HIM! I wouldn't be afraid to go back to class because of any Harry Potter!" The words hurt. But it was a breif scalding, like the burst cold when you touch something so hot your body can not reconingnize it for what it really is. Draco recovered quickly. "Better than me?" he scoffed,"good god, girl, who do you think you are? Or did you write that History of Hogwarts report for zig-zag scar out of the goodness of your heart?" Draco sneered.  
Hermione's face fell. She looked crumpled, depleated. She dipped her head so a curtain of curly ginger hair fell to cover her face. Draco shifted, irked. He glanced at the sky,which was beginning to blacken and swell, evidently hailing a coming storm, and knuckled a smudge from his cheak. "I didn't mean---"he broke off in a mixture of irritation, loss of words, and general inexperience at making sincere apolagys. Hermione hugged her arms to her chest, drawing her robes tight about her. Guiltily, Draco couldn't help noticing what a lovely figure she had. And ever since her teeth had been streightened.  
Draco cocked his head to one side and studied her. Her hair was actually quite a pretty color, once you got over the frizz- a deap, golden brown like a perfectly roasted marshmellow. She was quite pretty, really, for a gryffendor. She looked up for a moment, and liquid, molasses colored eyes glistened with a faint shene of tears. Then she ducked her head again.  
"I---"Draco started again, but, to his astonished irritation, found he could think of absoulutely nothing to say, except mabye a few ummms or, at best, a nevermind. "how did you hear about that?"Hermione whispered.  
Draco did something he'd never done before. But then, he couldn't remember ever fealing this way before, either. Why did Hermione make him feal like some great, spired wall inside him had collapsed? He was used to being cold, forebodeing, evasive, and on guard. In other words:serpentine and slytherinn to the marrow, to the bone. But now he just felt frantic, muddled as a muddied pound. His eyes showed it, looseing some of their normal feirceness and brightness. Gently, Draco brushed a strand of hair behind Hermione's ear,trailing two fingures along her cheek, tracing her profile down to her neck.  
Hermione looked up difiantly, as though expecting to see Draco mocking her. Her mouth parted slightly in surprise when she saw the unacostommed warmth in Draco's eyes. Draco tilted his head to study her, then brushed the hair away on the right side of her face as well. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING??" Draco squeaked as he was yanked roughly away by the collar of his robes. He delved into his pockete with the quickness of a startled snake, his long,sturdy fingures quickly closeing about his wand.  
"Draco!" Hermione warned.  
"What? Another illusion?" Draco spat, annoyed. He fought to twist, to veiw his captive, to strike out, curseing under his breath as he failed.  
"no."Hermione said quietly. She let out a breath, souding haggard. "Let him go, Mcgonnagle.  
"WHAT?"Draco shrieked, finally wrenching free.  
Mcgonnagle quickly caught him again. She turned the slytherinn to face her,looking deaply annoyed, then stared over her shoulder at Hermione. "Oh I'm not trying to help YOU, dear girl! God knows your in as much trouble as he is!"She snapped.  
"I--we weren't...."l.  
"what, leaving school grounds? Don't be silly, of course you were! Haven't you any sense at all? Didn't you hear the news? Voldemort is back is town!" 


	5. Let Down Your Long Beard

A/N:YAY!!!! i finally figured out that if i save fanfics as rtf not txt then it doesn't delete indentations, itallics, bold lettering,centereing and paragraph breaks after quotations! So the story should be a LOT easier to read from now on!  
Dumbledore,Dumbledore,Let Down your Long Beard:Part Five.  
"WHAT!?"Hermiones jaw dropped. Draco gaped. "Let's get you inside. Dumbledore wants to see you."Mcgonnagle snapped, as though unaware of the immense danger she had proposed to the astonished sixth-years.  
Numbly, they followed. One part frazzled ginger, one part sleek gold, one part paler than normal, one part flushed and red, one part slytherinn, one part gryffendor. They lagged slightly behind her, and both winced when the doors slammed ominously shut.  
Without a word, the gryffendor headmistress led them through the labrynth-like corridors and windig, shifting staircases of Hogwarts. Her rigid back interupted the passing of skeptical portraits and glareing ones, of quarrleing portraits and dozing ones.  
Hermione folded her arms across her chest, longeing to draw closer to Draco, to close some of the distance between them, to end the awful silence that fallen around them like a shadowy grey shroud. Draco, wanting much the same, either stoicly or stubburnly, studys the lichen-tinted stones as the drift past underneath, listening to the swishing of his robes, of Mcgonnagles, of Hermione's. Like a metronome, they each match one another's pace precisely, and the clunk of footprints beat on like a drum. A single sentance replays itself in Dracos mind, like a stuck tape:  
voldemort is back....voldemort is back....voldemort is back.  
Hermione exhales slowly. She's thinking the same thing.  
But sudenly, she is jarred from her thoughts. Mcgonnagle stands before the door to the headmaster's office. Leaning forward till she is practicly kissing the keyhole, she mouthes the password.  
A password neither are supposed to here.  
But Hermione think's it sounds something like Ôrosequartz.' And Draco is sure he hears Ôchoice tarts'.  
The door swings open obediantly, but not with out a chorus of creaking hinges.  
Mcgonnagle lets them in, nodds curly, then takes her leave. "The headmaster will be with you shortly."she says, before the doors snap decisively shut.  
They listen for her footsteps to retreat, and when the fade completely, Draco trys the door. "locked."he murmurs.  
"Well, honestly! What did you expect?"Hermione exclaims irritably, but she trys the door herself, then sighs and confirms what they already know:"locked." She turns, then gasps:Draco is nowhere in sight!  
She looks about her. The room is guised in burgandy and gold. The tapestried carpete depics an animated murrell of the story of how Hogwarts and the four houses came to be. One of the fingures, dressed in ravenclaw blue gives her a wink before turning to his yellow-clad companion and saying with much pompous grandear:"...and mine shall be brightest of them all!" Hermione chuckles softly at the antics of the two demensional founders, and waunders farther into the room, saying:"new rug." When her eyes light on a cage perched in the far corner of the room, next to a wall of scarlete drapes like theatre curtains, she forgets all about the disapearence of her companion. Inhaleing with delight, she races to the pheniox, and stands for a moment, envoloped in light, stareing, mesmerized into the flames licking across the elegant raptor.  
The flames shift.  
Hermione stares, squinting. The fire on Fox's left wing begins to take form.  
a ghoulish face apears, it's eyes like rubys learing.  
The face of the dark lord peered through the flames, sheilded his eyes against their glare.  
"Soon...."he whispers hoarsely,"soon...." And then he vanishes.  
And all that is left is the pheniox, looking regal and , for once, unknowing, envoloped in eternal flame.  
Hermione blinked at the vision was gone. Had she imagined it all? but it left her fealing decidely unnerved, evan panicked, and she staggered blindly away from the bird, as though expecting it to try to peck her to death with it's golden beak.  
A hand reached out of the scarlete drapes, extiguishing a strangled cry that never left her mouth.  
She was pulled behind the curtains, and the darkness snuffed evan the seaping light of the fire bird. 


	6. Blue Eyes Glow In the Dark

A/N:Oh, dammit!!!!actually, is now disagreeing with my rtf-saved files again.....but last time, i forgot to delete the happy, inacurate a/n...so...yeah....sorry...  
  
Blue Eyes Glow In The Dark:Part Six.  
Hermione acted instinctively, thrusting her elbow backwords.  
Her captor swore and released her, clutching his stomach and reeling in pain. She swung, fist and wand readied and-  
"DRACO?"She exclaimed in disbelief.  
"something like that."he managed to wheaze as he gagged for breath. "you're pretty strong."he admitted, but, seeing her soften, he rushed on, just to get her back:"for a girl."He sneered, and he was lucky it was too dark for her to see him do so.  
"Oh that DOES it! What on earth were you THINKING?" Hermione yelled, her cheaks burning feriously. Now she, too, was thankfull for the cover of the dark.  
"I---"Draco cut off abruptly. Now there was a good question. What HAD he been thinking? It had been a spur-of-the-moment type thing, an impulse he couldn't abate. He felt panicked. What could he say? Nothing. There was absoulutely nothing that would be an adiquate excuse, nothing with a ring of truth to it. Not evan an off-pitch ring of truth. Not evan what really was made any sense. Not evan to Draco. He threw his hands in the air in exasperation. Another impulse overtook him.  
"This."he said, and pulled her just a little roughly towards him.  
Hermione was too startled to protest, as Draco held her almost tenderly. She looked into his eyes, and was shocked to see her own suprise and fear and mirrored in his own. So often, eyes speak the truth that mouthes can't utter.  
She let him kiss her. She raked a long-fingured hand through his perfect, pyrite-hued hair. In that moment, she had no thoughts that weren't for him, he none that weren't of her. He had her scent in his nostrils:like magic and paper, intoxicateing.  
He carressed her back, running a hand along to her stomach,kissing her deaply, unthinking. Instincual, overcome by inexplicable passion. "Hello? Draco? Hermione?"The voice cut threw the dark.  
Hermione started, made to spring away from him, but he clung to her like he were drowning, and she the only peice of driftwood in sight.  
She tripped.  
They fell.  
"Where are you?"It was dumbledore's voice. He had heard the crash, as loud as when a sleepy toddler tumbles out of bed.  
"Draco!"she hissed, her voice an octive higher than normal, and more of a squeal than a decipherable sound. She tried to wriggle out from under him, afraid they would be discovered.  
Footsteps echoed through the room.  
Simaltaneously, they both froze,like hare under the watch of an ownl. Draco scrambled to his feat as silently as he could, freightened and refuseing to look at her, afraid of what he'd see. She started to follow suit, but became entangled with one of the scarlete curtains and slipped, emmiting a short, high squeak. Draco reached out a hand to help her up.  
She slid her hand into his, and he hauled her up. For a moment their eyes met, for a moment he didn't release her hand.  
Then dumbledore pushed back the drapes, and they sprang apart,jumping up almost like popcorn.  
"Oh."The white-bearded wizard said, his eyes questioning. They glistened like two black beads beneath his specticles. Hermione, horrified, saw herself reflected in the lenses of the Headmaster's glasses. A single, scarred image of ruffled hair and robes hanging almost off her neck, at an awkward angle.  
She quickly streightened her cloak.  
"I fell..."She muttered the lame excuse, knowing it wouldn't be good enough for one of the greatest sorcerers of all time.  
"Come."Said Dumbledore gravely, but his look of quiet disapointment did not escape the bookworm. "We've much to discuss." 


	7. The Boy Who Lived

A/N:...if you didn't realize....rtf-saved files stopped working (grrrr) so...back to t he annoying txt versions....oh welll.  
He Who Lived:Part Seven.  
Dumbledore led them into the spacious, warm-fealing room. Fleetlingly, Hermione was reminded of her unnerving vision. She glanced from Fox to Draco to Dumbledore, and back again, then, fealing a riseing sensation of shame, veered away the blonde slytherinn.  
Draco watched her movements helplessly, fealing as though he had lost something immesurably valueble. "Hermione...."he mouthed, looking up from the floor at last.  
Hermione gave him a sharp look, hugged her cloak to her chest as she had done in the forbidden forest, not half an hour prior. Draco had the uncontrollable urge to throw a rock through something that would shatter marvelously, like a window. But, lacking both rock and window, he merely vented his frustration by lengthening his stride and scowling at the carpete.  
"Do sit down."Dumdledore booms gravely, sweeping an arm envoloped in a swathing purple sleave in the direction of three compfterable looking chairs.  
Hermione pointedly arranged herself in the farthest chair.  
Draco edged towards the middle one. Hermione looked swiftly away. Sighing, Draco dismally pulled up the closest chair, and Dumbledore took the middle.  
"I'm sure you heard the howling."Dumbledore said,"but i am equally convinced you have no idea what danger you were in. You were in the forbidden forest, the closest to hogwarts grounds the dark lord can come! Have you any idea what--? No,no, of course you haven't...i just said that, didn't I..."the headwizard trailed off, removing his glasses and polishing them on his shirt.  
Replaceing them, he bore on. Hermione was acting like she always had: like a good student, a good listener. She was watching Dumbledore so intently and unblinkingly her eyes were beginning to smart. Draco, meanwhile, was watching her. He felt as though he was sitting in one of the balcony boxes at an old, elabrate theater, looking down at a play with a rapidly unveiling plot that he was finding hard to follow. Up untill that day, his life had been cunfusing as anyones, but at least it was routine. He was against Harry, the arragant prig, the boy who lived, who held strict tyranny of the house of the snake. He was illusive and forebodeing, he gave the hoards what they wanted:an icy smile, a coy remark, a wave of his wand, a cold shoulder as he left them standing there, blinking there, dazed.  
But then Hermione had followed him into the forest, and he'd let her. Wanted her.....to follow him....wanted to be with her.  
Wanted her.  
And now, what was Dumbledore going on about?  
"Voldemort."The headwizard was one of the few who said that name, and it jarred Draco back to the present."The prophecys fortold he would be stopped by the boy who lived, but the boy who lived wants no part of it. The boy who lived wants to rise to be a greater, darker power than voldemort, yet I feal he will seek aprentinceship from him before he stops him, before he illiminates the compition. And where will that leave us? With a greater, darker power. A power that knows what it is to live through all danger imaginable...."Dumbledore paused, drawing a deap breath of air, like a smoker drags a puff of lethal smog.  
"...and the name HARRY POTTER will never be uttered again...."Here he paused again,looking first to Draco, then to Hermione, locking eyes with them both.  
"....unless....Unless someone else stops the dark lord first. I believe that someone might be one of you."He says with an air of such deap gravity that the very world seamed to hault it's endless, ethereal dance for just a fraction of a secound.  
"O-one of Us?"Hermione's voice quavered.  
She broke her unspoken vow then, for her gaze flickered to Draco.  
He remained exprensionless,silent as the stone the walls were composed of. Secretely, he was thankful. He felt as though he was frozen the marrow while his flesh burned, as though everything incombatable and horrid had allied together to torment him. He watched Hermione swallow, glance at the door, at the carpete. He wondered if she felt it too. 


End file.
